There are, I think, three ways of looking at Superman. Most non-LnC fans think of him primarily as a movie and cartoon superhero who is known mostly for his super-strength and his ability to fly, and for his constant fights with Lex Luthor. To these people, Lois Lane as well as Clark Kent are rather secondary characters, and love and romance similarly play a very minor role in their take on of Superman.

The fans of LnC are clearly very different, because to them the superhero in spandex is the secondary character, while the civilian lovebirds are what really counts. But I think there are two main groups of LnC fans. One group, possibly the biggest, love the one-of-a-kind soulmate status and love chemistry between Dean Cain's and Teri Hatcher's characters in LnC:TNAoS. These people are going to want fics that reflect this love between Cain's and Hatcher's fictional characters, between Lois and Clark.

But another group of LnC fans, probably almost exclusively female, are interested in LnC only because they love Dean Cain's handsome and romantic Clark Kent. To them it's probably enough that Clark Dean Kent finds romantic love in the fics they read, whether or not his love interest is Lois. In fact, at least some of the Dean fans may actually prefer that their hero falls in love with someone other than Teri Hatcher's Lois Lane.

Now me... I became a die-hard Superman fan only after I had become convinced, back in 1969, that Superman truly loved Lois Lane. And I quickly realized that the one thing that I found absolutely necessary and indispensable about Superman was precisely his love for Lois Lane. If he lost that love, if he fell in love with another woman, if he preferred another woman over Lois, if he wanted to have another woman on the side, or if Lois died... well, if any of those things happened, Superman would be dead to me. He would be dead, useless, hurtful and horrible as a fictional hero to me. I truly couldn't stand him if he rejected Lois. And I couldn't stand him if Lois died.

In 1980, Superman rejected Lois in the movie "Superman II". And I rejected him. He was dead to me for ten years. A friend of mine gave me a book about Superman, and I hid it away in the attic. My best friend gave me a Superman tea mug, and I put it away on the highest shelf in my cupboard. Many years later I broke my favorite tea mug and found myself without the proper means to drink tea, so I looked around in my cupboard and found and retrieved my Superman mug, which I have used for my breakfast tea ever since. But by the time I found this mug (and was willing to use it), Clark had already proposed to Lois in the comics.

To me, no fantasy comes close in importance to my fantasy about Lois and Clark. Teri Hatcher and Dean Cain pale enormously in importance compared with what the fictional characters of Lois and Clark mean to me. I don't mind giving Lois and Clark Teri's and Dean's faces, but as for the show... well... I haven't seen it.

And I realize - believe me, I do - that I have no more "right" to Lois and Clark than anyone else on these boards. If anything, I have even less of a claim to these characters than the rest of you guys on these boards, because my fantasy about Lois and Clark doesn't even have anything to do with the TV show that these boards are dedicated to.

But I feel so enormously strongly about Lois and Clark. I feel so enormously strongly that Clark is dead to me as a fictional hero if he doesn't love Lois, and if he doesn't love her a lot more than any other woman, and if Lois isn't alive and around for him to love.

Please accept that I feel that way.

Ann